


Too Long, Too Far From Home

by Dragonflies_and_Katydids



Series: Dawn [7]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Gen, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Suicidal Thoughts, Synesthesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 13:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4307496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/pseuds/Dragonflies_and_Katydids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Cole and Bull talk.  A lot.  Cole's even himself for some of it.</p><p>A prologue for <em>Exit Light</em>, because somebody asked, "Hey, so exactly what did Cole say to Bull?"  And this happened.  Also, I think of it as a prologue, but chronologically, it runs concurrently with the second part of chapter 2.</p><p>Oh, and I have this headcanon where Cole suffers from a little bit of synesthesia.  I don't know why, it just seemed like it would be weird to suddenly be dropped down in an adult body and expected to act like you know what to do with all these senses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Long, Too Far From Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkReaperess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkReaperess/gifts).



> The winter here's cold, and bitter  
> It's chilled us to the bone  
> We haven't seen the sun for weeks  
> Too long too far from home  
> I feel just like I'm sinking  
> And I claw for solid ground  
> I'm pulled down by the undertow  
> I never thought I could feel so low  
> Oh darkness I feel like letting go
> 
> Sarah McLachlan, "Full Of Grace"

Her name is Luciana: she is nineteen, and her fear is everywhere.

Cole has never met her, but he knows her name just as he knows her fear, the way he knows everyone's fear. Hers permeates everything, cutting and cruel, cold even against the mountain's chill, calling to him even over all the others. Skyhold is full of fear--it's worse than Haven, as bad as the White Spire, this fear that's settling into despair--but hers still tugs him onward, under and around the ubiquitous fear of Corypheus: _"We closed the Breach, and he came anyway."_

That fear is easy to put into words, where Luciana's is more complicated. _"I don't want to die"_ is the surface of it, bright and sharp, but other fears hide in its shadow.

_"I don't want to die like this."_

_"He could hurt me, and no one would care."_

_"He could kill me, and my mother would starve."_

_"He could kill me, and I would be wrong again, foolish again, useless again."_

Her fear is a rope, strands braided together into something stronger than the individual threads: strong enough to bind, or choke, or kill.

Occasionally, someone will ask him how he knows about the pain--Luciana's or anyone's--and Cole will grope for the words to explain, only to fall short and frustrate both himself and his questioner. He's not yet grown accustomed to these five limited senses, and sometimes they tangle in this almost-but-not-quite human brain he's still struggling to understand. If he can't say for certain whether he tastes or smells or hears an apple when he bites into it, how can he explain a sense others don't even have?

It doesn't help that all six of his senses blur together, that he might hear and smell and taste something all at the same time. He understands, now, why babies need years before they can walk and talk and understand, and even more years before they can be trusted with weapons or fire. The Inquisitor explained that to him once, very patiently. He didn't quite understand it at the time: he was still more spirit than human then, outside looking in every bit as much as when he was still in the Fade, no matter that he had flesh to clothe himself.

Now, he's beginning to understand, and to understand exactly how far he still has to go before his flesh and his spirit both know the same things. But he wants to be human, and being human means bending words and ideas until they fit together to define what his senses tell him, so he tries as best he can to force the numinous into the mundane.

Pain is the smoke from a poorly-tended hearth fire, burning in his nose.

Pain is an unripe apple, turning sour on his tongue.

Pain is a carpenter's rasp, scraping across his skin.

Pain is a broken mosaic, shattering before his eyes.

Pain is the note from a cracked bell, thudding dully against his ears.

It's all of these, and none of them, and this contradiction is usually where whoever asked for an explanation throws up their hands and moves on. Cole continues to think on it anyway.

Of all the ways he's tried to explain it, the bell is closest to the truth: two bells together in disharmony, if only it were possible for one bell to set another ringing. It's like the changing of the watch, one guard calling to the next and waiting for a response: the question demands its answer. Cole now understands that he's the only person in Skyhold, perhaps in all of Thedas, who can hear either one.

Luciana's pain is a bell that echoes all over Skyhold, her fear stronger than the despair curling through the keep because he can hear the other bell that rings at the same time, the one that shows him the path to the solution. _A_ path to _a_ solution, rather. The Inquisitor has taught him this, too: so few of the questions Cole hears have only one answer.

This answer, though, is very clear. Her name is Luciana: she is nineteen, and afraid, and her fear rings an answering bell in the Iron Bull.

The Iron Bull fascinates Cole, with his deep laugh and deeper memories: inside he's as cracked and crazed as anyone Cole has met, but still somehow the sound of him is clear and clean, a bell whose call echoes forever in Skyhold's thin air. So many threads run back to him, so much pain stops with him. If the hurts Cole hears are bells in synchronized discord, then it sometimes seems that the Iron Bull rings in response to half the people in Skyhold.

A few ring louder than others, though. Luciana. Dorian. And lately, Cullen: not the same clear note Cole hears when he listens to Luciana or to Dorian, but the connection to the Iron Bull is unmistakable.

From Cullen to Luciana to the Iron Bull and back to Cullen, ringing together in the most perfect discord Cole has ever heard. It delights and distracts him at the same time, everything growing stronger the closer he comes to the Iron Bull's room.

Dorian is gone, hunting Venatori with the Inquisitor, and the Iron Bull is alone in his room. Cole stands on the other side of the closed door, listening to the bells only he can hear, until the Iron Bull says, "You can come in, Kid."

When the door has opened and closed behind him, Cole regards the Iron Bull thoughtfully from beneath the brim of his hat. "You always know when I'm here," he murmurs, the words half an echo of Dorian's pain and pleasure.

The Iron Bull looks at him, equally thoughtful, and Cole thinks maybe he can hear the echo, too. Of everyone Cole's met, the Iron Bull is the only one who sometimes hears the bells.

"Did you need something, Kid?" the Iron Bull asks, dropping his gaze back to axe he was sharpening.

"Not for me," Cole says, but he's lost track of Luciana's pain in the lingering echoes of Dorian's.

"For anyone I know?"

"Kadan," Cole says, and though the Iron Bull's hands don't pause, Cole can hear the bell ring inside him, faint and trembling. "A word whispered in the dark, silent and secret. He would never come back, if he knew."

The Iron Bull tilts the axe toward the candle, eye narrowed as he squints at the edge. "So it's probably a good idea not to tell him."

Cole hardly hears him, too absorbed in listening to the bells and what they tell him. "Silent because it's a secret, and safe because it's silent. If you say it aloud, it's not safe anymore." He closes his eyes, humming to himself. "It's silent, but you say it with every touch, and pretend it means nothing so it can mean everything."

"Cole."

That gets his attention: the Iron Bull almost never calls him by name. "The Iron Bull," he says, opening his eyes.

"Is something wrong with Dorian?"

Cole frowns and tries to focus on Dorian. He's several days' hard riding to the east, but the members of the Inquisitor's inner circle are usually easy enough to find. "Mud," Cole says. "Mud and cold and ignorant peasants who spit when I go past."

The Iron Bull snorts, softly. "So I guess that's a no?" He's smiling when Cole opens his eyes, but the pain inside him rings louder.

"Skyhold is safe," Cole says, trying to soothe that pain. "Hardly anyone spits, and no one else has tried to stab me."

It was the wrong thing to say, he knows as soon as it's too late. How can he know so much and still blunder about as if he was as unaware as everyone else? The longer he's human, the more it frustrates him, and the more it frustrates him, the harder it is to hear everyone else, his own pain so much more immediate than theirs.

"I'm sorry, The Iron Bull," Cole says. He can't hear Dorian anymore, and he doesn't know what else to say.

"It's all right, Kid. What did you need?"

"Not for me," he says again. "It's for her. For Luciana."

The Iron Bull sets down the axe and stretches his legs out. "I don't know a Luciana."

"She knows you," Cole says, and he can hear her again, as his own pain recedes. "Her fear knows you."

"A lot of people are afraid of me," the Iron Bull says. More pain, tempered by resignation and practicality.

"Mercenaries are supposed to be scary," Cole says.

"They are. Do you need someone to be scary?" Before Cole can correct him, he does it himself. "Does Luciana need someone to be scary?"

"You can help her," Cole says. "Because you're scary, but you're not." He looks at the Iron Bull from under the brim of his hat, willing him to understand. "He didn't hurt her, but he could have, and knowing that hurts more. Hurts both of them."

The Iron Bull sighs and gets to his feet. "Why don't you show me?"

Since that's what Cole wanted all along, he just nods and waits while the Iron Bull puts on his boots.

The walk down to the army's camp is long, darkness making the icy path doubly treacherous, and the flickering fires don't make it any easier once they're in the valley. A few soldiers call greetings to the Iron Bull, and he waves back. Most of them look right past Cole, hiding in the Iron Bull's shadow in more ways than one.

Luciana's fire is almost in the middle of the camp, and she sits beside it alone, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Light-blinded, she doesn't see them when they pause in the shadows to watch her, one of the Iron Bull's hands on Cole's shoulder to keep him still. Cole frowns at him, then looks back at Luciana, trying to understand what the Iron Bull is looking for.

She's certainly beautiful, and only a small part of that is the transient beauty of youth. Her face has a symmetry to it that appeals to Cole in a way he recognizes is nothing like its appeal for most men (and some women) who look at her. The reasons may be different, but it attracts him anyway as he watches and listens to the pain inside her.

Much of it is fear, but shame is there, too, as it so often is when people are afraid. Cole hasn't yet figured out that part of it: everyone is afraid of something, and so it makes no sense to turn the fear into a weapon against themselves. Or maybe, with their limited senses, they don't know that others are just as frightened as they are, all of them alone and afraid in the darkness while they wait for their demons to find them, as afraid of being alone as they are of whatever frightened them in the first place.

From fear to shame to loneliness, and back to fear. Sometimes he thinks he doesn't want to be human after all, not if it means he'll be deaf and blind the way so many people are, unaware of all the ways they're bound to others.

Across the fire, a man steps out of the shadows, clearly on his way to somewhere. He's making no effort to hide himself--he's humming, in fact, and walking briskly--but Luciana still jerks back and further into herself when she sees him. The soldier hesitates, and Cole hears his pain too for a moment, the sudden self-doubt that bites him.

_"Why does she look at me like that?"_

The soldier gives Luciana an awkward nod and continues on, the sting of the bite fading quickly as he moves away. Fading for him, at any rate. Luciana's shame is colder than her fear, now.

_"What kind of whore can't even look at a man without shaking?"_

Below that thought is another: _"My mother was right, I should never have done this."_

And deeper still: _"If I weren't such a coward, I could make this work."_

She's like a Chantry choir, a dozen voices blended into something more than the sum of its parts.

Beside him, the Iron Bull steps back, away from the fire, drawing Cole with him despite Cole's efforts to stay in place.

They don't go far, just out of Luciana's earshot, and the Iron Bull keeps his voice down. "Who hurt her?"

"He didn't mean to," Cole says. Standing so close to both Luciana and the Iron Bull, the source and the solution, he can feel Cullen's pain inside him. "Too much of everything, and when she touches me, it _burns_."

"Who?" the Iron Bull asks.

"I didn't touch her!" Cole turns his head, listening, only half aware he's speaking aloud. "Her fear is sweet and sickening, and I don't want it even if I do. What am I now, that I want her to fear me? That I want to give her something to fear."

The Iron Bull touches his shoulder, and Cole jerks, startled back into his own skin. "Tell me what happened."

"Old pain," Cole says, trying to listen without being overwhelmed. "Rotting in the dark until it ruptures. Her touch was supposed to soothe it, push it back for a little while, not rip it open to bleed again." He takes a deep breath, the way he's seen others do when they're fighting for control, and to his surprise, it actually does help. "He didn't hurt her, and he hates himself for wanting to, but she saw it, and now she sees it everywhere, in everyone. Now she knows they can hurt her."

"You're not giving me much to work with, Kid."

Cole moves around behind the Iron Bull and pushes him back toward Luciana. "You can help her."

"Help her how?"

"Because you're scary, but you're not scary."

And finally, the Iron Bull understands.

###

Back in the Iron Bull's room, Cole lies down in his bed and sleeps a little while. Dreaming is still strange and new to him, and he's not sure he likes it, or the fleeting glimpses it gives him of the Fade. Still, his body can only go so long without it, as if the Fade nourishes it in some way no one understands. He thinks he'll ask Solas about it, later, though Solas is angry with him, and with Varric.

He hears the Iron Bull coming long before he walks through the door, and by the time he arrives, Cole is standing by the table, tugging at his hat as if it might blow away.

"Who is he?" the Iron Bull asks, once the door is closed. "She wouldn't tell me."

"She's not so scared, now," Cole says. Her fear remains, but it's lost its sharpness. "More than she was before, but not as much as she was after."

"A little fear isn't a bad thing, in her line of work," the Iron Bull says. He sits on the side of the bed, and Cole can hear all the small pains of a life lived hard and fast. The Fade nourishes him, too, and it's been almost a full day since he dreamed, making it harder to ignore aching joints and tired muscles.

That's not a pain Cole can do anything about, so he says, "You can help him, too."

"Tell me why I'd want to."

"He has a knife like yours, and he cuts himself with it. You know how to dull it."

"What knife?"

"If I were stronger, they would be alive." Cole can feel himself slipping again, Cullen's pain so close and so strong. Luciana's pain is softer now, and without it, the Iron Bull rings in almost perfect counterpoint to Cullen. "If I were stronger, I wouldn't want it, but I'm not strong enough, and I can taste it, and her touch only makes me want it more, makes me remember the first time and every time after when I thought it was an honor to drink their poison-"

"Cullen," the Iron Bull says, as if he's just figured it out. His voice is normal, but Cole can hear his shock. "You're talking about Cullen."

"I deserve the pain," Cole says, still locked in Cullen's head. "I failed them all: failed at Kinloch, failed in Kirkwall, failed at the Conclave, failed at Haven." He's surrounded by it now, unable to hear anything else. "I failed all of them, and I only wanted to forget for a little while, and now I've failed again, hurt someone else with my weakness."

A touch on his shoulder, but it burns like Luciana's did and he recoils. "Don't touch me!"

"All right." The Iron Bull, soft and soothing. "All right, Kid. Where's Cullen right now?"

Cole points. "On the tower."

The Iron Bull squints like he's trying to see through the wall, and Cole can hear him trying out various explanations. "The mages' tower?" he asks at last.

"It's my tower, now." Cole sways a little, listening to the bells. "One step, and I can leave forever."

"Is he leaving right now?" the Iron Bull asks. Again his voice is calm while the fear inside him rings louder and louder.

"Do I fail them more by staying or by leaving?" Cole murmurs.

"Cole," the Iron Bull says, all the force and confidence of a commander. "Is he leaving now?"

"Not now," Cole says. "And not tomorrow."

"What about the day after?"

"Duty, like a noose around my neck, holding me here." Cole tugs at his hat, smoothing his fingers around the brim as he tries to be Cole again, and not Cullen. "The rope is fraying, and when it breaks, I'm free." He can feel the high wind on his face, and the anticipation of the fall. "But not yet."

"Not yet?" the Iron Bull asks.

"Not yet," Cole says, and the Iron Bull relaxes a little. "But soon."

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, and here's my ret-con (since this doesn't mesh perfectly with Bull's later conversation with Cullen): Bull fudges the details because he figures Cullen doesn't actually want to know that Cole's been digging around in his head.
> 
> That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!
> 
> ...ummm, pun unintended...

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Too Long, Too Far From Home [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4879750) by [Opalsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalsong/pseuds/Opalsong)




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